This film contains mature themes and strong language. Viewer discretion is advised.

Director Tuấn Andrew Nguyễn received the prestigious MacArthur fellow in 2025 for his lifelong interdisciplinary practice giving aesthetic form to histories of war, displacement, resistance, and resilience. He also won the Grand Jury Trống Đồng Award for Best Feature for The Island at VFF 2018. Amongst the Disquiet is his latest feature film that runs in the same vein. The story centers around a multigenerational Vietnamese family in New Orleans, a city that runs on memory and heat as reflected in the film’s mood.

Trauma that is no stranger to the Vietnamese diaspora seems to follow this family as they navigate through the loss of a sibling by suicide, another who longs to leave for Houston in hopes of success, and memories of their grandfather who was a veteran and a refugee.

Amongst the Disquiet, made in collaboration with THAO and Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill, immerses you in a cinematic experience beyond traditional filmmaking, using vignettes of dialogue and song to create spaces for the living and the deceased to communicate feelings of hope, ambition, affection, depression, as they all figure out what makes a home. 

By Jenni Trang Le